Welcome to WorldWide Telescope!

by Michelle Bartley

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There are two different ways that you can access WorldWide Telescope at home. If you have a PC computer at home, you can download the Windows Client. This gives you the full range of access to the program. When you are on the home page of WorldWide Telescope click “Install Windows Client” to begin this process. ***PLEASE GET YOUR PARENT’S/GUARDIAN’S PERMISSION BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD ANYTHING ONTO YOUR HOME COMPUTER!

If you have a Mac Computer at home, you can run the web client. The web client allows you to use the program and view the universe. The one major difference that you will experience is the lack of the 3-D model of the universe. To use the program on a Mac computer click “Run Web Client.”

Once you get to the main viewing page you will see 5 Tabs at the very top. These tabs are: Explore, Guided Tours, Search, View, and Settings.

When you are in the explore tab, you will see a list of collections including: constellations, solar system, all-sky surveys, and many more. If you click on one of these selections, you will see more options.

You can set up the WorldWide Telescope to view the universe from various cities around the world. To view the universe from Lexington or Boston, Massachusetts follow the following procedure.

1.Click the “View” Tab

2.You will see 4 small boxes. Find the box that says, “View from this location.”

3.Click on “setup”

4.Now you will see “Data Set.” Put the “Data Set” on US Cities.

5.Find the “Region” pull down and set that to MA

6.Now you can scroll through the cities in Massachusetts and select Lexington or Boston.

7.Once you are done, Click “OK”

Activity #1: View the constellation Sagittarius

1.Click on Explore

2.Click on Constellations

3.Use the arrow keys in the upper right corner to scroll through the pages of constellations

4.Click on Sagittarius and watch the WorldWide Telescope scroll to the constellation.

In order to see the boundaries and figures of the constellations:

  1. Click on the “View” tab.
  2. Check the boxes on the left that say, “Figures” and “Boundaries”
  3. Now you should see the red lines outlining the figures and the yellow lines outlining the boarders of the constellations.

If you have a specific item in the universe that you would like to see you can use the “Search” tab.

  1. Type what you would like to search in the box in the upper left corner.
  2. Click “go” and WorldWide Telescope will bring you to that item.

Activity #2: The Moon

  1. Click the “Search” Tab.
  2. Type in “Moon” in the box and click “Go”
  3. Now you can hold down the shift key and click the mouse on the moon.
  4. This will bring up the “finder scope.” You can click on the “research” button to look up information about the moon.

You can also view Guided Tours!

  1. Click on the “Guided Tours” tab.
  2. You will now notice a number of folders labeled: Learning WWT, Nebula, Galaxies, and many more.
  3. These folders contain multiple guided tours that you can watch! At any point, you can pause the Tour by pressing the space bar. Feel free to explore objects of interest in greater detail, then return to the Tour by pressing the space bar again.

Activity #3: Nebulas

  1. Click on “Guided Tours”
  2. Click on the folder, “Nebula”
  3. You will see 8 different Guided Tours of nebulas.
  4. Find the Guided Tour named “The Eagle Nebula”
  5. Click on the box and enjoy the Tour!